An AU senior won the chance to meet with former Vice President and 2000 Democratic presidential nominee Al Gore Wednesday through a contest run by Power Vote.
Casey Roe, a senior in the School of Public Affairs and the College of Arts and Sciences, recruited the most pledge signatures on Facebook for Power Vote, according to Brianna Cotter, the organization's communications director. Power Vote is an offshoot organization connected to the Energy Action Coalition, which seeks to make clean renewable energy a priority for politicians and hold elected officials accountable for their promises on the issue.
Roe, who is the policy director for AU club Eco-Sense, worked with the club to help recruit more than 1,000 AU students for the Facebook campaign, according to Cotter.
"It's interesting that at AU, most of us students have already submitted absentee ballots," Roe said. "What we're [Power Vote] focusing on now is accountability. We talk to students about how once your officials get into office, that you should still write letters to editors, lobby, call your representatives and let them know you like to see climate change solutions."
Roe met with Gore before his live Web cast in Nashville, Tenn., and watched Democratic presidential Obama's speech with him, she said. She also viewed the Web cast live in the audience.
During the Web cast, Gore spoke about youth voters' political power to help create a carbon-free future.
"For way too long, politicians of both parties have too often set aside the real solutions and conducted business as usual, which is unacceptable as far as clean energy is concerned," Gore said.
Gore also announced that three college campuses - the University of Maryland, College Park, Portland State University and the University of Georgia - won a separate competition to sign up the most students for Power Vote's "Get Out the (Power) Vote" campaign.
"The place to start is to make sure you vote, and make sure that others get out to vote," Gore said. "We're going to hold elected officials accountable for making the right decisions about energy in particular."
Eco-Sense already passed a clean energy referendum during the Student Government's spring 2006 election, which calls for AU to get 50 percent of its energy from wind resources by 2012, Roe said. AU now gets 25 percent of its energy from wind power, compared to 5 percent at the time the referendum passed.
"I really feel it's the biggest issue our generation is facing," she said. "We really need to not be dependent on these countries that take our money and don't have the same values we have. We could create so many jobs in clean energy in America by investing in wind and people wouldn't have to pay the huge prices at the pump."
Roe said she plans to continue working with climate change policy, preferably at a non-profit organization, after she graduates.
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